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Consensus 2015 - State of Blockchain

A wide-ranging overview of the state of the digital currency economy and blockchain technology from CoinDesk's lead analyst and economic historian at the London School of Economics, Garrick Hileman. This was our curtain-raiser of our Consensus 2015 conference.

Xapo Moves Headquarters from Silicon
Valley to Switzerland Citing Customer Privacy Concerns 14Source: CoinDesk • “This is not to facilitate crime, this is to protect privacy” • “There are some customers that will bring more balances if we do this and there are some customers who have said ‘we will work with you if you do this’”Wences Casares Xapo CEO

Expedia: Purchases With Bitcoin Are
Down 40% • The lack of overall understanding regarding bitcoin was again an inhibiting factor • "If we give them a bitcoin payment, they don't know what to do with it, it's not a currency they understand.” • "We accept bitcoin as a way of just allowing customers to pay with whatever method they want to pay. For us, bitcoin is on an even playing field with the other payment types we offer." Source: CoinDesk Connie Chung Senior payments product manager at Expedia

As Hype Surrounding iPhone 6
Launch Has Diminished So Has Apple Pay Usage Sources: Pymnts.com, Bank Innovation March 2015 June 2015 Percentage of eligible Apple Pay users who had tried the service 15.1% 13.1% Usage of Apple Pay in transactions 39.3% 23% Committed user 48% 33% Not sure how it works 31% 34% Forgot to use 32% 34% Concern about security 15% 19% Fears about it working 1% 4% When it comes to using a new payment rail, people have similar concerns about security and how it works, regardless of whether it is Apple Pay or Bitcoin

‘Wall Street’ Should Take Blockchain
Technology Seriously Sources: YouTube, CoinDesk, LinkedIn “Distributed ledger technology does have the potential to be disruptive in certain business models, but it has at least as much potential to be enormously empowering in existing middle business models in terms of making them lower cost, more efficient and less risky.” “So we won’t get there overnight but we will get there. How seriously should you take this? I would take it about as seriously as you should’ve taken the concept to the Internet in the early 1990s. It’s a big deal and it is going to change the way that our financial world operates.”Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Assets Holdings LLC